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Home , Dzungaria, Tarim basin, Tian Shan

CHAPTER TWENTY

RELATION OF THE ANDRONOVANS WITH THE POPULATION OF AND CENTRAL

It is reasonable to presume that Andronovo influence extended as far as . In the Anyang culture we find the momentous achievements of a world civilization—metallurgy, wheeled transport and -breeding—already in their developed form; the Yellow River displays no preceding development. Pursuant to the ancient tradition created during the formation of the Chinese state, civilization emerged there independently. This traditional hypothesis of autochthonous development has been embraced by most Chinese archaeologists (Chêng Tê-K’un 1961; Chang Kwang-Chih 1959; 1965; 1968). In accordance with another hypothesis put forward by M. Loehr (1949; 1957; 1965) and the outstanding Russian scholar S. V. Kiselev (1960) (and accepted by Li Chi (1957), W. Watson (1961), E. Kuz’mina (1973), Ping Ti Ho (1975), S. Kuchera (1977), M. Kryukov, V. Safronov, N. Cheboksarov (1970), and A. Varenov (1983)), the formation of Chinese civilization was stimulated by a western impulse. In the Eurasian metallurgy, wheeled transport and horse-breeding go back to the 4th millennium. BC, while the types of celts, spears and single-edged knives of Anyang find their prototypes and analogies in the Andronovo and Seyma-Turbino complexes. Now it has been established that metal appeared in China in the pre-Anyang period on the northern periphery in the cultures of the ‘significant others’ (Linduff 1996b), people, ethnically non-Chinese (Prušek 1971; En 1985; Lin Yün 1986). These cultures have been systematized by K. Linduff (1994; 1995; 1996a; 1996b; 1997; 1998). The Qijia culture in (2500-1900 BC) has yielded the oldest and , horse, forged copper awls and rarely cast bronze awls, knives, celts, gold rings, a mirror, plaques, and earrings (Debaine- Francfort 1995: 320, fig. 19, 61). In the cultures of Zhukaigou (phases 3, 4, 5) in Inner (2000-1500 BC), Lower Xiajiadian in the north-east of Inner Mongolia and Hebei (2000-1600 BC); Erlitou (periods 3,4) in the Central Plain (1750-1530 BC), (Chang Kwang-chih 1968) and Yueshi in Shandong (2000- 1600 BC) there are incipient signs of the productive economy (pig, horse) and metallurgy. In China alongside metal there appeared wheat, barley and , all cultivated in the and diffused in the 3rd millennium BC into the steppes; the horse was domesticated in the steppes. This testifies to a north- western impulse. The multi-ethnic population of northern China apparently played a pivotal role in the spread of the productive economy, horse-breeding and metallurgy, into the Central Plain from the north, the steppes (Linduff 1994; 1995a; 1997; 1998; Fitzgerald-Huber 1995; 1997). Relations with the north may have been realized via Xinjiang and along the corridor of Gansu (Map 15). In the north Xinjiang is connected with

252 CHAPTER TWENTY

Siberia by a pass through the . In the west it is linked with Fergana by the Tersek Davan Pass and by an easily passable route along the river through the Tian-Shan with Semirech’e. The ecological conditions of eas-tern are very diverse: from the north it is circumscribed by the Altai mountains, from the south the Pamirs, Kunlun and Altyn mountains, from west to east the Tian-Shan separates from the ; most of the territory is occupied by the but in places fertile river and lake valleys are suitable for farming, while areas of steppe may be used for stock-breeding (Petrov 1966; 1967). This determined the diversified character of the economic and cultural types of the . The Afanas’evo culture was the first in Xinjiang with a productive economy. It is represented by a cemetery near Urumchi and Ke’ermuqi (Keremchi) in the Altai district (Wang Binghua 1996: 75; Molodin and Alkin 1997). In terms of the funeral rite and implements similar to the Afanas’evo culture we have the Gumugou (Qäwrighul) cemetery; the absence of makes it impossible to assign an exact attribution (Debaine-Francfort 1998; Mair 1995; Mallory 1995; Mallory and Mair 2000; Kuz’mina 1998; Khudyakov, Komissarov 2002: 31-33). The calibrated date of Gumugou is 2030-1815 BC. The population raised cereals, sheep, goats, cows and Bactrian camels, produced textiles of a European type (Barber 1998), wore the traditional dress of the steppe-dweller: a cap, caftan, trousers and boots, and used forged copper articles. The population belonged to the Caucasoid anthropological type (Alekseev 1988; Han Kangxin 1994; 1998; Chikisheva 1994). The Afanas’evo culture is genetically related with the Pit-grave and, partially, Catacomb cultures (Kiselev 1949; Vadetskaya 1986; Tsyb 1984; Novgorodova 1989). The arrival of representatives of the Afanas’evo culture in , and Mongolia is viewed as the first wave of the migration of the Indo-European- eastward (Semenov 1993), the creators of Gumugou being also numbered among them (Jettmar 1985; Mallory 1995; 1998; Mallory and Mair 2000; Pulleyblank 1996; Renfrew 1998; Kuz’mina 1998). Northern Chinese populations may have received metal, wheat and barley, wheeled vehicles, the sheep and the horse from the Afanas’evo tribes, who came from the west. The words for all these were borrowed into Chinese from Indo- European, presumably Tocharian (Pulleyblank 1996: 1-24). It is likely that the rites of domestic animal sacrifice, familiar in the European steppes from the 4th millennium BC, were also adopted. In Siberia the Afanas’evo culture was succeeded by the of the Fedorovo type, which came from eastern . In the Fedorovo burial grounds reminiscences of the Afanas’evo ceramic tradition can be distinctly traced, but genetically these ethnoses differ. As already mentioned, at the early stage of Novy Kumak Andro- novo tribes organized large-scale metallurgical production. The history of Andronovo metallurgy is closely associated with that of Turbino-Seyma, studied by E. Chernykh and S. Kuz’minykh (1989). Turbino-Seyma bronzes are an assortment of types, comprising celts, adzes, double-edged knives-daggers, single-edged knives, often with a figured handle, spears, including those with a socketed shaft, hooks and bracelets. Turbino-Seyma bronzes are distinguished by the use of tin bronze and the casting of thin-walled celts, chisels and socketed spears with an all-metal socket. The invention of a strong bronze alloy, which enabled the production of implements with a cast socket, was a momentous